Synova

One of my professors brought a meteorite to class today.  He had a 1/2" maybe 3/4" thick slab, approximately 12" x 14" of a pallasite meteor from Russia that he'd just acquired over the weekend. Passed it around during class so we all got to hold it and look at it close. Wow, was that thing heavy.  Almost like a 3/4 inch thick slab of nickle-iron or something. ;-) Pallasite Meteorites

I've been thinking lately that nothing happens, nothing AT ALL happens, unless someone has more than they need. It doesn't really need to be me.   It doesn't really need to be you.   It's just that SOMEBODY needs to have more than necessary.  Somebody needs a surplus. Until that happens everyone is operating at a survival level. Survival level SUCKS. Once someone has extra... maybe it's a windfall (as in... the big tree blew over and Caveperson Biff suddenly finds himself with 20 or 30 pounds of saturated honeycomb) or maybe it's ability (as in... Caveperson Stan is a big burly fellow and hunts better than anyone else and regularly has more hides and meat than he needs) but until that happens no one has anything to trade.   Once SOMEBODY has that surplus people can begin to live above survival level.   Stan can trade meat to Biff for some honey, so that lets Biff off hunting just a bit and Biff can spend the time figuring a better way to make arrows, or ...

I got home and got the pictures off my camera and found out that I had a smudge on the lens.  ARGH!   I can't see the display anyhow when I'm taking them, so all of these were taken blindly, but they'd still be pretty good, I think.  I like the shadow of the gondola and the last picture shows the gondola, really tiny, coming up the cables.  (I don't think they called it a gondola.) I found a few fossils too, crinoids of course.   I think these might be bryozoa. The nodules of flint in the limestone are really neat. And here's a picture of the awesome fellow who took me up on my tramway ride and patiently waited while I looked at rocks.  :)